Foredom Inlay Router Guide Ring Base Adapter

I've been playing with wire inlay recently as there's 35 feet of it for the Angle Madness project. Along the way, I had to make some new base adapters for the Foredom inlay router base.  Mine is the William Ng version; it is based on an earlier version of the Stewart-MacDonald base that has since had some nice improvements (link is to the new one).  Both are fantastic.  William also sells the Foredom kit.

Also, the small router bits mentioned in the video are also from William's store; I prefer these to others because of collar on them is precisely placed the same distance from the tip. Once you set a routing depth, you can swap bits by dropping them to the collar and you don't need to adjust the routing depth with the different bit... saves a lot of hassle with inlay routing.

In this video, I just walk you through how I made a simple base adapter to act like a router guide ring (or bushing or copy ring or likely a dozen other names :)

This adapter will get used to route a nice curved opening in the back of each drawer tier for getting all the equipment wires into the back column, but also look good when there's no equipment on the surface as would be the case if it weren't used as an entertainment center.

There are some unique problems to solve for the Angle Madness wire inlay as there are for a table I made in a class with Michael Fortune. I'll be gathering up what I learned about it in a special episode outside the Angle Madness series since it'll cover more than I need for that project.

Using the MFK-700 on the Guide Rail

The MFK-700 is nice for light routing jobs, like rounding over or chamfering the edges of a project, or flush trimming edging/nosing/banding.  The dust collection on it is pretty stellar so I like it for these reasons.

Thing is, it never had accessories to put it on a guide rail.  I needed to do this to rout the platen for the vacuum press before gluing up the veneered panels for Angle Madness as I needed to create a grid of V-grooves for air evacuation.  The panels are ready for glue and vacuum now, long video soon :)

Here was my quick experiment and ultimate solution.

If you use the guide stop with the OF-1400 (the blocks that let you attach the router to the guide rail), you can either use the guide rods of the OF-1400 or the MFK-700 (they are optional and come with the edge guide accessory).  Either way, you can use the rods to attach the MFK-700 to the guide stop.  The caveat is that the hole spacing on the guide stop is a bit narrower than that of the MFK-700's edge guide.  However, if you put the rods in with all the screws loose (on guide stop and router), you can then tighten them up.  No need to crank on the screws, just snug enough to keep things from moving.

Another thing that worked was to use just one rod; once tightened up, it was pretty solid.  I used two rods on the platen.

You'll want to put the MFK-700 half on the guide rail just like you would with the OF-1400.  So what's the "foot" replacement to better balance the router on the other side?

The thickness of the guide rail is nominally 5mm.  So I used some double-stick tape to pop a pair of 5mm Dominos on the bottom.  Worked great if a little hokey.  Note that I oriented the Dominos so the rounded edges would prevent them from catching.

I wanted a more 'elegant' solution so I put a Domino on the bandsaw to set the blade distance and ran a piece of scrap through.

I then drilled a hole through the 'skate' and mortised a recess for the head of a T-bolt.  I used a 5/16" T-bolt as that's what my jig hardware kit is.  I'm sure this would work with normal 1/4" T-bolts.  The recess doesn't have to be really exact: you just want to prevent the T from spinning.

Also remember to round the edges of this skate since you don't want it to catch.

There's a hole there in the vertical MFK-700 base... I didn't drill a new one :)  Just push the T-bolt through and put a nut on the other end.  To make it easier to attach and remove, I just used a T-nut from the jig kit since there isn't much clearance, but it's now very quick to pop the skate on and off.

A benefit of making the skate longer than the base is wide is that when I pushed the router off the end of the stock, the skate and guide stop balanced the router.

I'll be using it more on the rail now!

Benchcrafted Moxon Vise Kit - Hanging It Up, with a French Cleat

Since my posting on building the Moxon vise using Benchcrafted's Moxon vise kit, I've had a number of questions about the table I put on mine, so I thought to roll a quick video.

If you've watched my project podcasts, you know that this vise has been center-stage for most everything ever since.  Best money I spent in a long time.  The thing is, this is intended to be a temporary vise you put up on a bench, do your work, and put away.

That said, I'll show you how I hang my vise to the side of my assembly table for quick easy storage and fast to take out.  You'll see how I had a  small storage box on the side there before the vise so even if you don't have this vise (com'on, everybody's got a vice... :) that storage box idea might be useful to you.

Benchcrafted Moxon Vise Kit - Cleaning Up Drawers

Tonight I decided to get back to those drawers I was making, oh, awhile ago :)

I never had a decent place to plane drawers; typically I'd clamp the drawer to the side of the MFT with a milk crate under it acting like a deadman 'platform'.  No wiggle since the MFT is anchored to the wall.  But it was slow to adjust the drawer and definitely not as stable on the side far from the MFT.

So... I made that little table on the back of the Moxon vise for my dovetail saw, chisels, and rubber chicken.  It is 24" wide by 11" deep measured from the front of the fixed jaw.  Turns out that I can easily straddle the table and clamp the drawer on the outside of the right acme screw. It's easy, very fast, and super stable.  This. Was. A. Winner.

Note that I scooted the vise over so the table portion was hanging off the side.  The piece of Maple you see sticking out the inside of the drawer is the piece that is normally clamped to the bench to hold it stable.  With the table being 11" to the back, I could take care of one side of the face, flip, repeat very easily.  Only the narrowest drawers for the top couldn't straddle as they are 8" wide.  For those, I clamped it in the jaw with the drawer out in front of the vise.  The 2" thick front jaw gave enough stability to clean them up, too, with care.

In these pictures, I'm showing planing the back.  Note how I have two pieces of scrap in the middle of the vise sticking down.  I did that to prevent the vise from moving back as I planed forward.  Thing is, I didn't need it; I removed them after the second drawer and it didn't budge at all.  If you look in this picture, I clamped the vise to the bench from underneath there.

What I also did later was take a piece of similar thickness scrap and set it in the vise above the far acme screw to set the parallel thickness (remember this needs to be done since we are on the outside of the rightmost screw).  I just left it there and could easily scoot in and out the drawers quickly and cinche them in place with a quick quarter turn.

This is the first time I enjoyed cleaning drawers.

Benchcrafted Moxon Vise Kit - Build, Mod, Demos

Benchcrafted recently released a Moxon vise kit (also available fully assembled).  I've wanted a "joinery bench" for a long time, but never found hardware I liked so I jumped at this kit when it was first made available.  Nice stuff!

In this podcast, I'll show you the kit, go through the rather easy build of it, and point out a couple changes I made to the vise chops as well as a jig for helping out with drawers.  Lastly, I'll show you how it works since it can be a bit different; for example, using the portion to the outside of the rods means you set the thickness differently than if you use the middle portion.  I've set mine to use the outside for faster and easier work with drawers so it affects me.  Getting to use the vise for a stack of drawers will be the test of whether using the middle or outside is faster.

Oh, I reference "Jameel" in the video.  Jameel Abraham owns Benchcrafted and produced a launch video for this vise that completely enticed me.

I was going to show using it with a bird's mouth like you would when cutting, say, abalone for inlay.  Mounting a bird's mouth is pretty easy in any vise, but the benefit of this benchtop vise is that it gets the bird's mouth to a much better working height.

As an addendum to this entry, Chris Wong of FlairWoodworks (and a great blog) asked me if I thought of putting a horizontal vee-groove in the jaws for clamping rods horizontally.  I had thought about it at one time, but forgot the day of the build.  So consider that; but don't use the bandsaw! ha ha, use a vee-groove router bit or molding plane.  The beauty of this vise is that you can retrofit that groove by removing the threaded rods and plowing the groove on the fixed jaw.  The suede-covered jaw would be too difficult to retrofit, but you'd likely only need the groove on one side.

I did get to use the vise often this past weekend while simultaneously working on 3 other projects.  Definitely glad I got it.

As another addendum to readers from Jameel's nice blog posting about this video, I've already added another blog entry about using this for planing drawers based on my table and the extra outside space.  Might be more by the time you read this :)  If you want to find those entries quickly, look in the label list to the right and click on 'Benchcrafted'.

Dust Collection Improvements for your Bandsaw

I recently got a Laguna Tools Italian-Made LT-18 bandsaw.  There's a 4-part video review of it if you are interested.  The one thing that bugs me, though, is that the dust collection is really bad since it doesn't have an under-table port.  In this video, I discuss how to modulate your DC's air flow to a shop-made shroud for cleaning right under the table.  The results were very good; not dust-free, but very good.

While I did this for my Laguna Tools LT-18, the modulation method and some ideas on how to build the shroud can carry over to your bandsaw.  Frankly, I wish I did this on my Rikon 14" I owned previously.

Not the most interesting topic, I know, and certainly the video could use some bikinis (not on me...) but it should give you ideas on how to make your bandsaw reasonably dust free.

I also want to direct you to Chris Wong's recent review of his Laguna LT-16 3000 series bandsaw. He was able to insert a piece of ply inside the cabinet to get much better collection for very little effort; it's food for thought.  Turns out that same trick is commonly used on Agazzani bandsaws.  A chat via Twitter tonight brought up several other possibilities.  I can already smell a second episode with more ideas...

If you have a great dust collection idea for bandsaws, please post it in the comments.

Upgrading a Performax 16-32 to a SandSmart Controller

This project definitely comes out of left field...

I have a Jet Performax 16-32 drum sander that just predates the addition of a SandSmart controller.  When I first got the sander, I looked into swapping out the controller.  Well, the box of parts has sat for a long time, but I got it done this past weekend.

SandSmart is the controller that runs the conveyor belt.  It allows you to set whatever variable speed you want, but if you set the feed too fast for the drum, it automatically backs off the conveyor speed to keep the drum at full load, but not pop a breaker.  For anybody who has popped a breaker by taking too much off a board or hitting an unexpected high spot during flattening passes, you know why this controller can be a big deal.  When the breaker pops, the conveyor stalls almost immediately and the drum spins down very slowly.  The heat of the drum slowing will always leave a very large burn mark.

The "doesn't pop the breaker" benefit is the most touted, but not the best reason in my mind.  Drum sanding is slow, it's boring.  I like the idea that on the first several passes to simply 'hog off' stock, I can set the speed much higher than it could handle and let the SandSmart controller back off the speed to the maximum speed allowed given the abrasive, stock, and amount you're trying to take off.  That's why I want SandSmart.

In this video, we take a tour of the drum sander insides if you haven't seen one up close.  Below the video is a list of parts you'd need to accomplish this.  They are all available from Jet's replacement parts program.

Even if this upgrade doesn't interest you, if you have an older pre-Jet Performax drum sander, you might want to consider ordering the new dust hood with the 4" port versus the older 2.5" port.  The stock number for this new dust hood is 80-2002.  Depending on your older model, you may have a knob to open it (like you see in the video thumbnail) or a D-shaped handle.  If you want the knob (which the replacement dust cover is drilled for), the knob is 80-3137 and the corresponding latch 40-3168.  Note that the SandSmart controller assumes a 1.5hp motor. If you have an original Performax, you may have a 1hp motor, which will draw a maximum of 8 amperes. The 1.5hp motor will draw a maximum of 11 amperes.  SandSmart's hysteresis is based on current so the 1hp will never get in the self-regulation range of the controller.




Parts List:

Stock Number	Description
72-2250	SandSmart Controller, 1Ph 110V
72-2250-01	Knob - 2244Plus
72-2250-02	Label Speed Adjusting
40-4903	Bracket Base Controller
40-4904	Bracket Housing
40-4022W	Cover Base
20-0777 (qty 2)	Screw Pan Head Self-Threading

Parts desk: 888-804-7129

Guided Tour of my Pimped SawStop :)

I ordered my SawStop 3hp PCS cabinet saw during the pre-release.  Since I received it, I've made a number of modifications to it that have been documented here such as adding a router wing with dust box, adding an overhead collection arm, wiring a single pigtail to the wall to power everything at the saw 'station'.  (All of these are easily found under the 'SawStop' label in my blog's sidebar)
Well, that's a lot to read.
Since I had the video camera out, I shot a tour of these SawStop modifications as well as one that has not been documented here before: a dust port for catching the dust when edging a board (cuts that aren't captured will spray dust to the side that isn't normally collected).
If you want your SawStop and router table to be as dust-free as possible, give these ideas a looksy.

Metering Your Tools

Awhile ago, I blogged about finally changing the oil on my planer.  Oh, my, that stuff was treacle not oil!  I want a way to track my planer's hours so I can plan to change the oil after 35 hours of use, but how?!  Many tools could use metering.  I could see any industrial tools like this PM-20 planer having oil that needs changing or maybe put a timer on a DC unit to know when to rince the canister filter.  Or maybe just out of curiosity like an odometer; might be interesting for shop owners wanting to know what gets used and for how long.

Anyway, my quest to put an hour-meter on my planer lead to McMaster-Carr.  There, I found the perfect digital hour timer with 1/10th hour resolution.  It tracks the time that voltage is applied to two pins.  The best thing is that it works with AC or DC input (75-270 VAC, 36-185 VDC). Perfect for a 220V planer!

I'll describe how I connected this to my planer.  Mine has been out of warranty for, oh, a decade. Yours is likely different, this may void the warranty, you might mess something (you?) up.  It's easy, but understand everything before taking it on.  I'll explain enough (i.e., "babble") that you should be able to easily adapt it to your tools.

Here you can see the cover of the planer power switch opened.  The push buttons on the front push buttons on the relay unit with all the wires; that is, the push buttons you touch have no power.

This is the wiring of my power switch (yours very likely will differ).  The key is to know: a) the timer needs voltage to pins 1 and 2 (the documentation explains this), and, b) we only want that voltage when the switch is on.  So where do we tap the voltage?  Well the voltage is connected to the motor when you power up the planer so the easiest thing to do is see where the wires from the motor come up.  For mine, the motor is the black cable coming up on the right side of the box.  The two 'hots' for it go to two terminals just to the left of the round red 'off' push-button.  That's my target.

The timer will fit on the side of the box near the top; plenty of clearance inside for it and it's a convenient place.  Here I taped a pattern for the hole I need to cut out.  Used a knife to score the ABS plastic then drilled a hole in the corners.  From there...

...it was all fretsaw work and a little touch-up with a file.

Ta-da!

Here, I connected it to the motor terminals with the motor disconnected.  I want to try out the timer.  Powered up, didn't smell anything 'funny', and left it while putting on some CPES (that smells funny!) for a sharpening pond I'm making.  After that was done, I logged 0.4 hours (~25 minutes) on the timer and I verified that after disconnecting it for an hour from power and re-running it, the accumulated hours were stored.  Wahoo!

Here it is installed.  Note that the timer display is normally off; once voltage is applied for 5 seconds, it shows the hours of use.

Now all I need is to 'borrow' an oil-change sticker next time I get my car done so I can mark my planer as due at 35 hours of run-time.

Extending the Capacity of the MFK-700

The Festool MFK-700 has pretty amazing dust collection, but the horizontal bases (0º and 1.5º) require the use of pretty short bits.  If you use non-Festool bits, you're likely to run into this problem repeatedly.  I decided to fix that.

This entry is actually the first of three enhancements I'm making to the MFK-700 although arguably this is the most useful :)

Here is one of my favorite bits for flushing banding: a 1/4" spiral down-cut bit.  I have a bearing version I use in the OF-1400, but this bit is what I want to use in the MFK-700.  As you can see, there's an "issue".  This fix is essentially to remove that part of the base to make clearance for the bit or any number of other reasonably short bits.

Addendum: that 1/4" bit works for me, but some others who have done this modification find that they just can't get the base low enough to get the cut perfectly flush, so there's a variance (in one case, though, they did this to the 1.5 degree base).  Anyway, the best bit by far for this modification, and what I now use exclusively for flushing banding, is this 8mm down-spiral carbide bit (#1322) from Vortex Tools.  The larger diameter means you can definitely get it to flush with room to spare, full capacity of the modification, and a down-spiral so the flushing is the cleanest possible.

The portion you have to remove is done in two parts.  First part is marked here.  While this part gives clearance for the bit, it doesn't make the channel where the bit rides wider.  This will be clear in a photo later.

You'll want to "raise" the fence as much as possible to get the top (shown) far from the base (background).  This lets you use the fretsaw on an angle to make these cuts.

I'm using a fretsaw from Knew Concepts along with metal-cutting Pégas blades from Ben's Scrollsaw to cut away the bit clearance.  Yes, these were blatant plugs, but that saw and those blades make a fantastic combination.  Say goodbye to wandering blades ("goodbye!")

Okay, so anybody purchasing a Festool router base knows how difficult it would be to start cutting it up... but it cuts very cleanly with this blade.  You don't need the cut really clean; the second cut will clean it all up along with filing it.

Voilà!  Point of no return :)

For the second cut, we need to remove the bat ears I highlighted.  While they don't give more bit clearance, they make the channel for the stock narrow (the channel being the light portion of the base that is above the lower brown foot).  For this cut, I used a hacksaw to get the crosscut straight.

What's left now is to actually remove the bat ears so they are flush to the offset portion of the base.  Back to the fretsaw...

As you can see, there isn't much room for long passes with the fretsaw so it's slow-going, but you get there.  Cue up a long song.

Take a mill file to flatten the portion where the ears were and clean the edge made with the hacksaw crosscut.  I also used a half-round file to clean the round bit recess and soften some edges.

The final result with the bit having enough room.  Start to finish it might have taken a half hour.  This is a modification I'm certain to enjoy and take advantage of.

Using the Domino on Thin Stock

I swore I posted this before, but it must have been on a forum that was later deleted :)  So this is a Tivo post of sorts...

The 90º fence of the Festool Domino doesn't go down to 90º when the fence-to-bit distance is less than 8mm or so.  This makes centering the domino in 12mm ply difficult.

I found this tip on the FOG long ago from a number of sources.  The problem is basically that a corner catches on the fence when you move it down.  I've highlighted the corner that I filed long ago for this fix.  Mine is the older (better!) pin-style fence so if you have a newer one, the stick point may be elsewhere.

Work the corner with a file; be sure to match the file handle to the marker color :)

If you round the corner that touches, it can pivot down to 90º even with the fence-to-bit distance at 6mm.  Just takes a little filing with a little file.  Voilà, magic!

SawStop Overarm Dust Collection (with light!)

Since writing this entry, I rolled a video giving a tour of the final assembly including the router wing, dust box, and custom power connection used to power the whole thing with 1 cable.  This article is still what you want for assembly details, but the video gives you a better idea what it will do.

Over on the WoodTalkOnline forum, Brian Q and I were exchanging ideas for the SawStop.  In my case, the router wing with dust box (I blogged in more detail here) and in his case his version of the SawStop Overarm Dust Collection.  I believe he's making my dust box and I just finished his overarm guard.

SawStop sells an overarm guard, which is what started the discussion, but it's $200, which is a little steep for what it is.  Brian's post on WTO describes how he did his and here I'll describe my version.

First, a view from the front then details of the build and special features.

The arm is made of 1 1/4" EMT conduit mounted on the back fence rail; it swings up to the far right side of the table keeping this addition out of the way for any width cut.  I added a boom arm with a florescent light to give better lighting on the business side of the table.  Though I added a lot of lighting to the shop recently, the garage door is directly above the saw when it's open; with the exception of summer, my garage door is always open!  This will help.

It was important to be able to stow the collection arm when using the router table.  For some operations, it isn't a hinderance at all, but for running long molding, it's in the way.  This picture shows a view from behind where I'm loosening a star knob...

...rotating the unit down...

...into a stowed position where it is still attached but completely out of the way.

The main component is the J-loop of EMT shown here.  The loop is what reaches above the table.  The straight is what is in a holder I'll explain later and allows the rotation.

The pieces are connected using a water-proof compression-fit coupler.  There are other couplers with set screws, but they press against the conduit and could open leaks.  A water-proof couple looks better and likely holds the vacuum better.

The long part of the J fits into a box attached to the back fence rail.  While it is difficult to see here because I had already painted it black (yeah, I paint shop stuff), it is just a long box with an inside dimension to just fit the 1.5" OD EMT (1.25" is the ID).  The outside face of the box has a portion of the side removed, 2 holes drilled through that side, and star knobs attached.  When the star knobs are tightened, that side squeezes down on the pipe to keep it in place.

Here are some additional closeups:

Note that I drilled 3 holes into the back rail fence to attach the box.

And a closeup of how the star-knob screw passes through.

The following three have an exaggerated fill-light on them so you can see the ends of the box in case the description wasn't clear:

The box simply squeezes the EMT to keep it from spinning; very effective.

This one is from the other side of the pipe from where the last photo was taken; you can see this is just a square column made to fit the pipe perfectly then a side had a kerf cut put into it to allow you to squeeze the pipe.

The end of the J attaches to a 2.5" hose that joins the main 4" DC feed at a 4-2.5 Y junction.  Between that junction and the connection to the saw cabinet, I put a blast gate.  Naturally, I wouldn't shut off access to the cabinet, but this lets me close the gate slightly to increase the flow to the collection arm.  As it is, the flow is significantly better than my previous make-shift setup, but close the gate a bit and it's a regular vacuum up top.

The hose at the top of the J to the blade guard was a lucky find at a pool supply store.  The hose is 36" long with a 1.25" connector on one end that fit perfectly into the blade guard; the other end fits overtop the EMT conduit perfectly.  I believe it was a Barracuda hose.  Regardless, they have the right size hose and rubber connectors at a pool supply store.

The boom arm for the light came out well as it adds the perfect amount of light without a lot of glare on the cast surface. The arm itself is just a stick of pine I had laying around.  I made two pipe brackets that slip tightly over the J loop with a 5/16" bolt poking up through the boom arm.  Two knobs make locking it down and removing it pretty easy.

Addendum: the brackets I made of wood eventually dried, got loose and became a nuisance.  While in the conduit aisle of the borg (where the EMT is), I found two EMT hangers and replaced the brackets.  Much nicer, much easier, and quicker to remove if you want to.

The previous picture also shows how I snaked the lamp cord through the conduit to keep it from being in the way. Here you see it pop out the other end just before the connection to the 2.5" hose.  I simply drilled 5/16" holes for the wire (be sure to completely de-bur and smooth the hole from both sides so it doesn't abrade the cord!).

The lamp cord was in no way long enough to make it to the plug so I needed another 12' of extension.  What I did is use connectors used in power supplies; you can get them at Fry's Electronics.  I had some laying around.  Cut the plug off the light's cord, cut the socket tail from the extension, thread the extension through the conduit then wire the connector to the ends (if you do this, make sure you keep hot-to-hot).  The picture shows the light, connector (and it's fittings), and a pack of neoprene washers that I used everywhere to keep knobs from vibrating loose.  Overkill, I know.  Should I ever want to remove the boom arm, I just unscrew the knobs and disconnect the wire.  Very quick.

Overall, I really like this system.  I get better lighting, the dust hose doesn't get in the way of the cut (my previous hack...), far far better suction at the blade guard, no loose hoses behind the saw, and easily stowed to not impede certain routing operations.

Thanks to Brian for the initial ideas - especially the use of conduit and pool hose! - as it got me to fix a nuisance and gave me something simple to do in a too-hot shop.  Thanks, too, to Andrew for asking questions about things not that clear in the text so I beefed up the photos.